Tonight, FR Publisher Jon Fleischman will "host" a live chat on the FR blog page, as election results come in. Using new technology, FR blog readers will be able to tune in to the live chat, and weigh in themselves in real time!

Be sure to check out the action later this afternoon, when the polls start to close on the East Coast. The live blog feed will appear atop FR’s blog page tonight.… Read More

Here at the FlashReport, we’ll be live-blogging election results for California. I am at the Hyatt Hotel in Irvine, site of the California Republican Party’s election night party, safely sequestered in the "war room" were election contests across the country and especially here in California will be closely monitered.

… Read More

The fine folks over at Politicker are reporting that House Republican Leader John Boehner is preparing to campaign for re-election to his leadership post…

Huh?

That is quite possibly the dumbest thing I have ever heard. The only thing that would be more stupid would be his colleagues offering Boehner, or anyone in the current House GOP Leadership, any support — except out the door.

It is so clear that we need fresh faces in our leadership for Republicans in the Senate and the House.

Boehner and his team can point to no meaningful policy victories whilst in the minority (Oh, except Boehner supported the outrageous government bail-out of Wall Street, but so did Pelosi. That wasmore a victory, with Pelosi, against conservatives and cautious taxpayers). And it is very clear that Boehner will have presided over historic losses of Republicans during his tenure.

Exactly on what "platform" does Boehner think he could run for another term? The reality is that Boehner’s election… Read More

As we wait these last few hours for the polls to close, I thought I’d share some interesting numbers sent out by the guys at Political Data.

Total Voters in California– 17,247,190 New Voters Registered After 9/15/2008 –1,225,894 Total Early Voters –6,954,009 Permanent Absentee Voters –5,785,495 Voters in Mail Ballot Precincts –603,009 Voters Applying to Vote Early– 1,285,330 Returned Ballots (Voted) as of 11/3/2008– 3,941,247… Read More

Yesterday, I asked my business partner, Matt Rexroad, if we could count on him to wear his lucky shirt on Election Day. Mostly because it makes me laugh to see him wearing the old rag (pictured at left). Matt tells me his fellow students used to walk by and pat his shoulder to get a little luck from the shirt when taking finals in college and law school. He’s also wears it every Election Day.

I have another friend who’s E-Day ritual of going to church in the morning then going to buy a music CD (not sure if he buys his albums off I-tunes now).

I don’t have an Election Day ritual, but this might be my year to start one. If you have any suggestions or if you have some of your own rituals let me know.… Read More

I don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow, but, should a miracle occur, and Republicans avert the impending debacle that many of the polls now predict, we should recognize that such a victory would be a divine gift, and not the result of any thing we have done to deserve the respect and support of the American people.

We deserve to lose, because we have not been who we say we are. We have spent so much time worrying about how we market ourselves that we have forgotten to worry about doing the right thing. The most unfortunate thing about that sad state of affairs is we know what the right thing to do is, and people know we know. We promise to shrink government, to cut taxes, to eliminate government control of peoples lives, to restore liberty and true equality, to eliminate government power, and to make government less of influence in people’s lives. People entrusted us with power to do just that. We didn’t. We played politics with our principles. More important, after people took power away from us for not living up to our promises, we still played politics with our principles. The most recent bail out of the financial markets for… Read More

About 40 of us Prop 8 supporters gathered in Redding Saturday to fly the flag for traditional marriage. It was a rainy day on a busy intersection near one of the big shopping centers, lots of traffic. But we had a hearty group that stuck it out for nearly 3 hours…turns out the rain was not as much of a factoras the "free exchange of ideas and thought." Now, by and large the response to our support of traditional marriage in conservative Redding/2nd Assembly District was very good, about 96% of the drivers-by were honking, thumbs-up, and smiling.

But what got me was the venom of the No on 8 folk. I’ve been seeing and hearing the stories of the Yes On 8 signs being destroyed or stolen but seeing how angry the lefty’s are in person is a real eye opener. A few driving by would thumbs down or nod in disapproval, but the high percentage that would scream obscenities out the window or forget to hold up all their fingers when waving was kind of disturbing. We were peaceful, as conservatives usually comport themselves well, [with some exceptions at times],too.

The anger at any conservative backed issue is not unusual… Read More

Every two years a Democrat opponent surfaces to take on Mary Bono Mack in the 45th Congressional District. There is always a lot of big talk, high hopes, bragging of lots of money coming from the DCCC, and then…nothing materializes and Mary wins by 20 points. As well she should.

This year, her opponent isJulie Bornstein. Julieserved the 80th ADfrom 1992 to 1994. She was considered a rising star –the Democratic Assembly Caucus Chair and was voted the Freshman Legislator of the Year in 1994. With all of these accolades,she went on to get soundly trouced in her first bid for re-election by over 14,000 votes and gave the seat to the Republicans. Julie then served under Gray Davisbefore moving on to open an Affordable Housing Coalition.

The same communities she now wants to represent sued her for her tactics to force affordable housing on them. Julie’s coalition also had some questionable budgeting methods as seen here in this ad http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fozuasop9GE

Congresswoman Mary Bono Mack, who has served the 45th Congressional District since 1998… Read More